


Everybody needs a chance (once in awhile)

by Emilys_List



Category: Girls (TV)
Genre: Brooklyn, F/F, Greenpoint, Hipsters, Misses Clause Challenge, New York City, Williamsburg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 05:33:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emilys_List/pseuds/Emilys_List
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Jessa and Marnie share a kiss, Marnie can't stop thinking about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everybody needs a chance (once in awhile)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [botherd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/botherd/gifts).



> Title borrowed lovingly from the Bodeans' "Closer to Free." 
> 
> Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me. DON'T SUE.

Jessa does not, in fact, eat Marnie’s cunt on the sidewalk. 

They spill out of the building, laughing with nervous, pent-up energy, and Jessa curls an arm around Marnie’s shoulders, pressing them tight as they roam towards their subways. They do not talk about their achingly long kiss, or the way their arms felt wrapped around each other, and instead exclusively discuss what a fucking weirdo Thomas-John was.

“Seriously,” Jessa says.

“Seriously,” Marnie echoes.

Feeling good and buzzed and outside of herself, Marnie bids Jessa a regretful farewell at her G train stop.

“So,” Marnie says, playing with her purse strap idly.

“So,” Jessa says, and she looks like she’s about to say more, as if she’s got something inside that’s bursting to come out, but then she shuts her mouth, literally, with a quick snap. “Literally, doesn’t - don’t worry.” She gives Marnie air kisses, one on each cheek, and as she stays close Marnie wishes she could keep her there.

Whoa.

“Um, so, are you going to be okay?” Marnie asks, trying to recover from her somewhat dangerous revelation. “The Hewes Street stop is just up Broadway. I know you’re not, like, familiar with the-”

“Marnie, if I can get by on the ZET in Zagreb, the New York Metro holds no-”

“It’s actually just called a ‘subway,’ I know how you have very cute British slang, but-”

“Cute?” Jessa asks, a half-step from teasing, and Marnie never really knew what someone meant when someone’s eyes smiled, but now she knows. They hug, tightly, and Marnie squeezes her eyes shut. When they part, she opens them and looks at Jessa.

“Bye,” Marnie says, descending down to the train, suddenly sick to end this great night.

“Bye,” Jessa says.

+

Marnie wakes up and her heart is thumping, and her brain is already whirring before she's properly awake. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO LAST NIGHT? YOU WEREN'T THAT DRUNK! DID CHARLIE REALLY HAVE THE POWER TO THROW YOU INTO A SAPPHIC SPIRAL? OR HAVE YOU BEEN WANTING THAT ALL ALONG?

Or, worse because of its implications, wanting Jessa all along?

She takes a long swig of water from the cup on her bedside table, sitting herself up against the headboard. She takes in the tornado of her room, a swirl of clothes and accessories, and wishes she had the energy to clean up.

She's getting there.

What she does have the energy for is reading but not answering email, and looking at Facebook. She deletes Charlie as her friend because - really. It needs to happen.

Feeling so good and empowered, she takes an awesome shower, and in her towel afterwards searches the kitchen for an edible breakfast. She stumbles across a half eaten stale cranberry muffin that she revives in the microwave and she’s mid-bite when Hannah flounces in, her top too tight and her shorts ill-fitting.

“Hiya,” Hannah says, kissing the top of Marnie’s head and rummaging for cereal. “I had the weirdest day yesterday. Adam yelled at a car but then made like a bazillion ‘I’m sorry’ posters.” Her eyes go dreamy for a second. “He’s a brilliant writer. So full of pathos and gravitas.” She sits down and smiles into her cereal.

“I had a weird day, too,” Marnie says, but Hannah looks lost in her own thoughts still, and Marnie rolls her eyes. “What if I wanted to make love to a woman?” Marnie asks aloud.

Hannah almost chokes on her Cheerios. “Marn, 'make love?' You've gotta save that kind of talk for a three martini night at a rooftop party.” 

“Seriously,” Marnie says again.

Hannah chews thoughtfully. “Is it - I love you. I'm sure your vagina is lovely and wonderful, and I could get lost there, in that Georgia O'Keefe landscape, but I'm with Adam, as you know-”

“Christ, not you, Hannah!” Marnie exclaims.

“You definitely don't have to bark like that,” Hannah replies. “So. Who?”

“Doesn't matter. Nevermind,” Marnie says, shutting down and clearing her plate from the table.

In her room Marnie paces, walking loops, holding on to her phone. She wants to call, she doesn’t want to call.

She calls and Jessa picks up on the third ring. “Oh, hello,” Jessa answers, sounding lovely and truly pleased to hear from her.

“Hello! Jessa, hi,” Marnie says, trying to rise above her embarrassment and fear, and in the momentum of that she asks, “Do you want to go hat shopping with me?” 

“Okay,” Jessa says without hesitation.

+

Marnie cannot actually afford a hat, especially ones in the triple digit range as they are here, but the truth is that she wanted to see Jessa, and she thought this activity would be like bait - and it was.

They browse a shelf of chartreuse bowler hats and Jessa runs her fingers across one. 

“So we kissed,” Jessa says, and Marnie must look ridiculous when she looks at her because Jessa bursts out laughing. “God, it’s not a tragedy.”

“No, I know! Of course. It was - nice.” Better than nice.

“Nice?” Jessa spits out.

“Better than nice,” Marnie admits, lending voice to thought, and she moves in a fraction, her eyes falling shyly to the floor. In a second, Jessa plops a hat on her head, pulling it down securely, and grins at her.

“This has been a shit year. I had a miscarriage, I fucked my ex with my head out of a window, my boss wanted to get inside my pants - you know, I think swearing off men might be the strong choice.” Jessa’s kidding, at least somewhat, but the look in her eyes is quite serious. “I thought it was great,” she continues. “And I had fun.” She nods emphatically.

“I’m - glad,” Marnie says. “It was fun.” Fun doesn’t describe it, but it’ll do.

Jessa swings in just a little bit closer, an inch, then more until they are less than six inches apart. Jessa leans in and whispers in Marnie’s ear, “Maybe we could have more fun.”

Marnie straight up shivers.

+

At Milk Bar they sit and drink boozy milkshakes. 

Marnie continues, “It’s not like I don’t understand the male gaze, or the perspective. Women are, generally speaking, gorgeous, and therefore two women together … But at the same time, the fascination is just-”

“Puerile,” Jessa offers, and it makes Marnie beam.

“Puerile. Sure. I was going to aim much lower, vocabulary-wise, but yes, that’s perfect.” She takes a sip and shakes her head. “It just boggles the mind. It has nothing to do with men! If it does, it’s a performance meant for men and isn’t about two women at all.”

“Just two drunk bitches at a party,” Jessa says, chewing thoughtfully on her straw. “But, I mean, I get it. I love to watch women kiss. It’s so soft and sensual. Very little tongue thrusting, except in the good ways.”

Marnie smooths one hand through her hair. “How many … times have you … kissed? A woman?”

Jessa scrunches up her eyes, then her whole face. She releases after about 20 seconds. “Somewhere between five and fourteen. It’s a little fuzzy when you get to Scotland.”

“Ah,” Marnie says, nodding, even though she has zero idea what that means.

“And you?”

“Oh,” Marnie replies, blushing. “One.”

Jessa reaches forward to lightly slap Marnie’s cheek. “They’re going to take your Oberlin diploma away.”

Marnie smiles and it makes her cheeks ache. “I hope not. I kind of need it.” She looks around a little, and seeing no one in their immediate area, she asks, “So, have you gone - have you-”

“Fucked a girl?” Jessa supplies. Flushed, Marnie nods yes, eagerly, and Jessa nods back. “Yes, I have.” With just the slightest gleam in her eye, she asks, “Haven’t I mentioned it?”

Under the table Marnie’s knee brushes against Jessa’s. “Nope, I think you skipped over that.”

Jessa grins, and tells her about Aada, this Finnish girl she traveled through Turkey with - with beautiful, pendulum breasts and a gorgeous smile and a talent for oral sex. “She taught me so much! She was very multi-talented with her tongue. Also, she was terribly bright and I learned a lot about labor unions.”

Marnie isn’t sure what to say in reply to these colorful descriptions of passionate, hedonistic sex; having had sex with only Charlie - for the most part - pales in comparison, and she isn’t sure what she has to share. But, she can try.

“Charlie loved going down on me,” she says, and Jessa’s eyebrow raises. She props her head up on two fists, elbows on the table, in an ‘I’m listening’ pose. “He - would just spend hours. Like. Touching me. Prepping me at first, teasing me, but not for too long. He’d get to where he needed to go before too long.”

“And where, pray tell, is that?” Jessa asks innocently, at the same time that her boot-clat foot kicks gently against Marnie’s ankle.

Marnie cocks her head to the side. “My clit,” she whispers, and Jessa laughs, her head thrown back.

“Don’t whisper it! Don’t be scared of it!”

“I’m not!” Marnie replies, hushed, though still fierce.

They are so close, their bodies are touching, and Marnie would love to reach out and stroke Jessa’s thigh, to see what it would launch - but she can’t. Because she doesn’t want to stress their delicate friendship, but moreover she’s scared to go down that rabbit hole, with Jessa of all people, who is scared of anything for too long. And Marnie knows she couldn’t be a continual hook up; she’d want more than that. She wants more than that - she wants love and great sex and companionship.

But Jessa reaches out and strokes Marnie’s hand softly, sweetly, and it relaxes her. What if something were possible? What if they could?

She wants, her heart wants, but she’s scared, and so she says it, “I’m scared, Jessa.”

“Of what?”

“Of what’s next,” Marnie replies. Jessa offers her other hand and they stare into each other’s eyes like lovers. 

Jessa shrugs, and never loses eye contact. “Okay. Me too. Me always.” Her face breaks into a smile and lights up as a result. “But I like the jump into the unknown.”

They part later with a hug, and they both hang on for way too long. “You’re teaching me a lot, Jessa,” Marnie says as they pull apart.

“Really?” Jessa asks, surprised, and Marnie nods. “Good!” As she leaves, Jessa says, “Maybe there’s more to learn.”


End file.
